Alumni group keeps alive spirit of baseball camp

LAKEVILLE — To a generation of local residents, the Ted Williams Baseball Camp on Precinct Street is the hub of recreational activities in the town of Lakeville and home to several of its youth sports organizations. To Joseph LoRusso and others, however, it is a timeless vestige of their younger days and the place where they spent countless hours of enjoyment with good friends.

LAKEVILLE — To a generation of local residents, the Ted Williams Baseball Camp on Precinct Street is the hub of recreational activities in the town of Lakeville and home to several of its youth sports organizations. To Joseph LoRusso and others, however, it is a timeless vestige of their younger days and the place where they spent countless hours of enjoyment with good friends.

A North Reading resident, Mr. LoRusso heads the Ted Williams Camp Alumni organization, a group of former campers and coaches that seeks to keep alive the spirit of the Lakeville facility which operated from 1958 to 1986. The camp was named for the late and legendary Boston Red Sox outfielder and Baseball Hall of Famer and annually attracted players and coaches from throughout the United States as well as several foreign nations.

"It was a sad day when the gates closed at the camp in 1986," Mr. LoRusso said during a telephone interview. "I met a lot of good baseball people there from all over the country and the world, and I wanted to find a way to stay in touch with them, so that's when we started to hold reunions."

The first reunion, Mr. LoRusso said, was hosted at the camp in 1993 and followed by similar functions in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Mr. LoRusso said plans call for official reunions every two years until interest wanes.

The 2014 reunion will be staged at the camp on Sunday, Aug. 3, beginning at 9 a.m. The day's activities will largely consist of socializing, sharing stories and holding an auction to benefit the Jimmy Fund of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Boston.

"The Jimmy Fund meant a lot to Ted Williams and he did a lot for it, so we figured this is a good way to remember him," Mr. LoRusso said. "Ted was an honorable man and I know he would want his friends to keep helping people the way he did."

The auction at this year's reunion, r. LoRusso said, will mirror the last event in 2012. Attendees are asked to bring a memento and/or keepsake from the camp to be donated and auctioned, and all collected funds will be donated to the Jimmy Fund.

"We raised nearly $500 from the auction two years ago," Mr. LoRusso said. "We're hoping to raise even more this year."

Mr. LoRusso said he was involved at the camp during the final 11 years (1975 to 1986) of its operation. Now 54, he originally attended as a camper, advanced to become a junior counselor, and was finally promoted to a coaching position in its latter years.

"We all have good memories of the camp," Mr. LoRusso said. "It was a special place and it remains special to us. The reunions give us a chance to get everyone together again and share stories about our experiences at the camp."

Mr. LoRusso went on to play baseball in college and ultimately became a physical education teacher and baseball coach at several schools in Greater Boston. He has also been a certified baseball umpire for more than two decades and is now also a scout for the Baltimore Orioles.

To this day, Mr. LoRusso credits much of his success to the lessons he learned in Lakeville.

"The camp touched my life in so many ways," he said. "I learned a lot from the people I met there, not just about baseball, but also about life."

LoRusso runs a Web site for the TWCA — twcalumni.com — and also maintains a presence on Facebook. He is available to handle queries about the group and this year's reunion by telephone at 978-207-0145.

While saying he was "glad" that the former camp site is still used today for recreational purposes, Mr. LoRusso admitted he still has regrets about the camp's closing.

"I'm trying to keep it alive because of all I learned from the people who were at the camp," he said. "For me, the memories of the Ted Williams Baseball Camp will never die."